1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a disk drive that makes write and/or read of information signals to and/or from an optical disk, and more particularly to a slot-in type disk drive into or from which an optical disk can be directly introduced or ejected through a disk slot.
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-320300 filed on Sep. 11, 2003, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Well-known conventional optical disks include purely optical type disks such as a CD (compact disk) and DVD (digital versatile disk), and magneto-optical type disks such as a MD (Mini Disk). Also, a variety of disk drives are available for use with such types of optical disks, respectively.
The disk drives include different types. In one of the typical types, a disk is settable directly onto a turn table which will be exposed and accessed from outside with a lid or door provided on a device housing being opened. In another typical disk drive, a disk is settable onto a disk tray which is moved horizontally into or out of a device housing, and the disk is automatically settable in place onto an internal turn table with the disk tray being brought deeper. In a still another typical type, a disk is settable directly onto a turn table provided on a disk tray. With these types of disk drives, however, it is necessary to open and close the lid or door, bring the disk tray into or out of the device body or place the disk onto the turn table.
In addition, there is known a so-called slot-in type disk drive into which a disk, once inserted through a disk slot formed at the front side of a device housing, is automatically settable on a turn table. In this disk drive, a disk introduced through the disk slot is caught between a pair of guide rollers located opposite to each other and which are rotated in opposite directions. Thus, the disk can be brought into place in the housing (disk loading) through the disk slot, and can also be brought out of the housing through the disk slot (disk ejection).
There have been demands for smaller, lighter and thinner structures of portable type electronic devices such as a notebook-sized personal computer or the like in which a disk drive of the above-mentioned type and thus for correspondingly smaller, lighter and thinner structures of such a disk drive.
In the above-mentioned slot-in type disk drive, however, since the pair of guide rollers is larger than the diameter of the disk, the width of the entire disk drive will be larger. Also, since the disk is caught between the pair of guide rollers, the thickness of the disk drive will be larger. Therefore, the conventional slot-in type disk drive cannot be designed more compact and thinner.
To solve the above problem, there has been proposed a slot-in type disk drive designed to load a disk by bringing into place, in a device housing, an optical disk inserted through a disk slot by means of a plurality of pivot arms pivotable in cooperation with each other in a plane parallel to the optical disk, and eject the disk by bringing the optical disk through the disk slot to outside the device housing (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Nos. 167209/1996 and 2003-16710, referred to herein as “patent document Nos. 1 and 2”, respectively).
However, in such a slot-in type disk drive, if the disk is forcibly pushed into the housing when bringing the disk to outside the housing through the disk slot, an external force applied in a direction opposite to the disk ejecting direction will possibly damage the pivot arms and mechanisms to drive the pivot arms inside the housing. Also, if the disk is forcibly brought to outside the housing when bringing it into the housing through the disk slot, an external force applied in a direction opposite to the direction disk loading direction will possibly damage the pivot arms and mechanisms to drive the pivot arms inside the housing. Further, such external forces, if applied to the disk, will possibly interfere with the mechanisms inside the housing to damage the disk.
Furthermore, the disk drive disclosed in the patent document No. 2 includes a base having a turn table surface on which a disk is to be placed. After a disk is introduced into the housing, the base is elevated and the disk is mounted on the turn table surface while being forced to a convexity formed on a top plate. In this disk drive, however, if the top plate of the housing is low in rigidity, the disk will not possibly be appropriately chucked on the turn table surface during disk chucking.
Furthermore, the disk drive disclosed in the patent document No. 2 for example includes a pair of guides that guide an optical disk introduced from the disk slot while limiting the optical disk from being directed vertically and horizontally. However, in the disk drive is used with an optical disk formed from two disk substrates joined, with an adhesive, to each other such as a DVD for example, the pair of guides cannot smoothly bring, into the housing, the optical disk once introduced through the disk slot (disk loading operation) and also to outside the housing through the disk slot (disk ejecting operation) without being adversely affected by the adhesive, if any, coming out from the periphery of the optical disk.
Furthermore, in such a slot-in type disk drive of a thin structure, an optical disk being introduced through the disk slot may possibly have the signal recording layer (lower side) damaged due to contact with any component in the housing, which however depends on an angle at which the optical disk is introduced.
For example, the disk drive disclosed in the patent document No. 2 includes a base having a turn table surface on which a disk is to be placed. The base is elevated to place a disk once brought in the housing onto the turn table surface (disk chucking). On this account, there is provided in this disk drive disk insertion guides which guide the disk while limiting the angle in which the disk is introduced in order to prevent the disk introduced from the disk slot from touching the base.
However, in case such guides are provided, the base has to be elevated to a position above the turn table surface when chucking the disk. Therefore, the entire device has to be designed thicker for such an elevation of the base.
Furthermore, the disk drive disclosed in the patent document No. 1 for example, requires a pair of disk introduction arms, right and left, to insert an optical disk as well as a pair of disk ejection arms, right and left, to eject an optical disk. So, the disk drive includes an increased number of parts. The disk drive cannot be designed have a more compact, lightweight and thinner structure.
On the other hand, in the disk drive disclosed in the patent document No. 2, an optical disk is loaded and ejected by two or three oscillating members. However, pins of the oscillating member abutting the periphery of an optical disk become non-uniform in position and pressing operation depending upon the location and pivoting direction of the oscillating members when the optical disk is positioned in relation to the spindle motor. To solve this problem, the disk drive needs new disk positioning members and guides.